446 Report on Laying down Land to Permanent Pasture. 
indication of changes in market-prices. Even the steady influence 
of years of experience, clearly tending to demonstrate a growing 
and apparently permanent alteration in the price of a special 
product of the farm, has failed to produce great variations in the 
routine of cropping. Changes in the area under cultivation of 
a particular class of plants, or in the usual average amount of 
live stock of any kind on the farm, have hitherto been but slowly 
made, and with a caution amounting to timidity. Whatever com- 
petent observers may have prognosticated as the probable price of 
wheat, barley, or oats for the next few years, the farmer, although 
he may have already received a foretaste of the future, has de- 
viated little from his path. By pursuing his usual course he 
believed himself to be at least safe, and that in the end he must 
win. In past times he found that a few seasons at most were 
sufficient to balance a temporary reduction in the value of any 
article. If there was a fall this year in the price of wheat, it 
would most probably rise in the next. If horses or sheep, oxen 
or pigs, were dear, it was only for a time. The rise of the 
market was only temporary. Its occasional fall, although sudden 
and sometimes alarming, lasted but a short while. Every com- 
modity had, in its turn, its share of favour. Whenever he did 
breed more pigs or grow more barley as a speculation he was 
usually wrong, and got sick and faint-hearted at his ill-luck. 
On the whole, he found that to adhere to his usual practice of 
mixed farming was the safer plan, and he always had some 
kinds of produce that fetched a good fair price, though others 
hung heavily on his hands, and had to be disposed of at an 
actual loss. So his theory was " a bit of everything pays best," 
and in mixed husbandry he found his security and his rent. 
Since, however, our country is becoming less self-supporting 
from the rapid increase of our population ; and since rapid 
means of information have enabled foreign merchants quickly 
to acquaint themselves of our wants, and operate on our markets, 
thus keeping prices at a more level rate, the agriculturist can 
more safely calculate on the prospects of the future. From all 
we do know, it appears evident that for some time to come the 
price of meat, at least, will suffer no serious reduction ; for the 
area from which we can import live-stock w ith profit is very 
limited compared with the vast territories, many thousands of 
miles distant, from which we can obtain corn. Under present 
conditions a crisis in the rise or fall of grain or stock cannot 
occur so frequently as of old. Formerly the fluctuations were 
commonly but local phenomena. Now markets are more equal- 
ized over the kingdom. And the very slowness with which agri- 
culturists even now take to any change in their system of farmin<; 
is itself a safeguard against any sudden alteration in the price o 
